Various types of book holders exist in the prior art. Most of these holders, however, are not suitable for persons who have lost their arm mobility, e.g., quadriplegics. Some types of book holders have been proposed, the most recent being a Table Mounted Universally Positionable Book Holder Enabling Readers to Turn Pages Easily Without Hands, U.S. Pat. No. 4,496,126 issued to R. Stanley Melton. In this device, Melton provides a (1) set of clamps for mounting on a table for positioning, (2) an open rectangular framework for displaying an open book with (3) cover clamps to hold the book covers and having (4) a set of monofilament plastic lines for keeping the book open to display a pair of opposed pages and to facilitate the turning of the pages by the reader with a mouth manipulated rubber tipped stick. The clamp mount clamps on an edge of a table to hold the framework substantially vertically for reading in sitting position with two or three lines disposed horizontally across the open pages to hold them open and partially flattened for reading. When a conventional table moves over a hospital type bed, for example, and the framework is clamped to the edge of the table, it holds the book horizontally with the opened pages resting on the monofilamant lines.
One drawback of the prior art is the ability to handle different sizes of reading materials, i.e., from small paperback books to large newspapers. Another drawback is the method used to turn the pages. Some devices used automatic page turners, but they tended to be very expensive. (either devices, such as the one cited above, used a rubber tipped stick held in the mouth, which is suitable for some individuals but not for others; e.g., as the handicapped get older they lose much of their facial muscle power so if a rubber tipped stick is to be used it must be held by the jaws and not merely the mouth.